Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company From the Inside Out (5 page)

falling into the outhouse, a squirt from a cow’s teet, getting poked in the behind by a goat—unlike the more urban burlesque of the New York animators.

In Disney’s attempt to break into the animation industry, it was inevitable that he would adapt to the humor already found popular in other cartoon series. This can be seen simply in the subjects and characters Disney worked on during this period. The Alice Comedies are a blatant reversal of the technological tricks used in
Out of the Inkwell
cartoons—putting a live-action girl into animation rather than a cartoon clown into live-action footage. The increasing reliance on the feline character Julius in the Alice Comedies also betrays the influence of Felix the Cat. Walt did not originate the idea for the Oswald series; rather Universal (his distributor at the time) told him that they wanted a 10

M I C K E Y ’ S M O N A S T E RY

cartoon series starring a rabbit. Crafton points out that Oswald is “essentially Felix the Cat with floppy ears.”16

The similarities in humor and character design to the Fleischer and Messmer shorts betrays Walt’s need to keep higher authorities happy. As his superiors, distributors Margaret Winkler and her husband consistently sent memos complaining about the content of Disney’s Alice Comedies, as well as when Disney fell behind in schedule.

Disney’s first attempt at Oswald, a short called
Poor Papa,
was initially rejected by Winkler and Universal, and Disney had to make a second with a completely refashioned Oswald before the studio approved.17 In 1927, as Walt went to renegotiate his contract with Winkler, he learned that many of his animators had been secretly wooed to sign contracts with Winkler—not Walt—the idea being to keep Walt working for Winkler but more firmly under control. Walt balked, and suddenly the animators and the Oswald character were out of his hands. Vowing not to let such a thing happen again, Walt set to work creating a new character that would be solely his. Walt’s overarching desire for independence and control would lead to the creation of Mickey Mouse. Eventually, and more provocatively, this ambition would lead to a change in how sexuality and the body were conceived in his studio’s work.18

It is easy to notice the early similarities between Mickey and Oswald, for the characters are almost identical. Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, animators at Disney since the early days, assert that “Mickey was essentially Oswald with round ears, a bulbous nose and a long skinny tail.”19 Reusing many of the plots from the Oswalds for the early Mickeys, one finds that Mickey originally shares much of the sexual aggressiveness that Oswald exhibited.20
Plane Crazy
(1927), the first Mickey made (although released after
Steamboat Willie
), provides a good case in point. Inspired by Charles Lindbergh, Mickey decides to make a plane out of material from the barnyard. He then decides to impress Minnie by taking her on a ride in his new contraption. Once in the air, he uses their isolation to pressure her into kissing him, and, when she refuses (pushing him away and even having to slap him), Mickey rolls the plane and does loops to frighten her into complying. Instead she bails out, using her panties as a parachute. This aggressive sexual desire would continue in the second Mickey cartoon,
Gallopin’ Gaucho.

Here, Mickey jauntily enters a pampas saloon, grabs senorita Minnie (wearing falsies that accentuate the existence of breasts) and energeti-M I C K E Y ’ S M O N A S T E RY

11

cally throws himself into a tango
à la
Valentino in
The Four Horsemen of
the Apocalypse
(1924).

Mickey’s aggressiveness in these early pictures was directed in a number of directions—expressing a constant potential for comic violence on the body. Children’s author Maurice Sendak has commented that the early Mickeys are “all about body parts: kicking the ass, pulling the ears, tweaking noses, twisting necks . . . (a) kind of passionate in-vestigation of the body.”21 Richard Schickel concurred: “[Mickey] was quick and cocky and cruel, at best a fresh and bratty kid, at worst a diminutive and sadistic monster, like most of the other inhabitants of that primitive theatre of cruelty that was the animated cartoon.”22

Steamboat Willie
(1928), the first Mickey short to be released, and one of the first sound cartoons in American theatres, presents a character who angrily attacks a parrot for making wisecracks and swings a cat by the tail as part of an impromptu musical performance. Richard Schickel notes that “there is something a little shocking about the ferocity with which Mickey squeezes, bangs, twists and tweaks the anatomy of the assembled creatures in his mania for [creating] music.”23 Throughout the early Mickeys, cows with huge dangling udders are still around squirting people, outhouses and chamber pots are still in evidence and female characters are constantly having to pull their skirts down after flashing their panties. There are many characters with the back flaps of their pants undone, lots of spitting and lots of violent abuse of animals for fun and profit (kicking ostriches, pulling on cats’ tails, etc.). In
The
Chain Gang
(1930), Walt had no problem putting Mickey in jail and having a climactic prison riot and jail break before throwing Mickey back into “the hoosegow.” No attempt is made to tell viewers that Mickey was unjustly imprisoned, and the cartoon ends with Mickey firmly re-planted in a guarded cell singing joyfully “There’s no place like home.”

Mickey was an incorrigible bounder, and audiences loved it.

“THE GOLDEN PERIOD”: CREATING THE

“DISNEY MYSTIQUE” (1931–1941)

A rodent running around like a sex-crazed Harpo Marx is not the Mickey Mouse that most parents and their children remember, and certainly not the Mickey that greets visitors at the theme parks. The appearance of a kinder, gentler Mickey signaled a new era for the studio.

12

M I C K E Y ’ S M O N A S T E RY

The studio in this new era, commonly referred to as “The Golden Period,” would gain even greater success as it began to reject the carnivalesque attitude towards sexuality and the body. Taking its place—in both the films and in a concentrated public relations effort by the studio—was the “wholesome” image that is today considered essential to the “Disney mystique.”

The “new and improved” Mickey did not evolve until a little over two years after his initial debut. During that time, much had changed.

The United States had been plunged into the Depression, and many citizens looked for a scapegoat on which to blame the woes of the nation.

Many found fault with bankers and stock brokers. Many others found the Depression the obvious result of the lax morality and lawlessness of the “Roaring ’20s.” Consequently, a new sense of moral rectitude began to rear its head in America.

One of the earliest indicators of this change was the publication of Henry James Forman’s
Our Movie-Made Children
in 1933. Research for the book, done between 1929 and 1931, blatantly equated the loss of morality with the economic downswing. “Virtue may have been at a premium once—but apparently it slumped along with the other leading stocks,” the work bemoaned.24 Detailing the results of how motion pictures affected children, the book not so subtly indicated that the rampant violence and sexuality displayed on American movie screens had dire potential for the younger generation. The study claimed scientific veracity, but the researchers themselves obviously had preconceived opinions on the subject, which translated into survey questions that reinforced their beliefs that films had a detrimental effect on children.25

Although today the methods of observation and statistical compilation seem incredibly unscientific and biased, the work was quite popular at the time, creating a call for stricter methods of film censorship. The industry had heard these charges before, and, in the 1920s, responded by hiring former Postmaster General Will Hays to ensure that films were

“safe” for family viewing. This new call, though, made the film industry worry about the possibilities of federal regulation of censorship. Attempting to forestall this potential calamity, the Motion Picture Producers and Directors of America commissioned Martin Quigley and others to write out a Production Code in 1930. Although the Code provided no means of enforcement (that would come in 1934 with the establishment of the Seal of Approval provision), the document stringently declared all manner of sexuality and “blue” humor as off limits. In coming to M I C K E Y ’ S M O N A S T E RY

13

terms with the new technology of sound, the Code went so far as to list specific words and noises (the flatulence of Bronx cheers, e.g.) that would be prohibited.

At the same time that this was going on, Mickey Mouse had quickly become the biggest star in animation, rivaling most live-action stars in recognizability and popularity. Many theatre marquees placed the title of the latest Mickey cartoon above the title of the feature being shown.

By 1930, a barrage of Mickey Mouse-related merchandise had invaded store shelves, and Mickey had successfully been introduced to a number of foreign countries. Although many animation scholars stress that cartoon shorts during this period were not aimed solely at children and, as shall be examined later, the popularity of Mickey extended to numerous adults, there was no questioning the importance of younger audiences in Mickey’s fantastic popularity during the 1930s. The sheer number of toys and dolls bearing Mickey’s likeness testifies to children’s involvement with the character. As early as 1929, exhibitors began creating “Mickey Mouse Clubs” specifically aimed at enticing children to their theatres.

With such a juvenile following, then, it is not so surprising to see Mickey and the shorts he appeared in targeted by certain reform groups in the early 1930s. Suddenly, the outhouse humor and sexuality that had always been in Disney’s shorts was looked at with horror by such groups. Terry Ramsaye in the February 28, 1931 issue of the
Motion Picture Herald
describes how:

Mickey Mouse, the artistic offspring of Walt Disney, has fallen afoul of the censors in a big way, largely because of his amazing success. Papas and mamas, especially mamas, have spoken vigorously to censor boards and elsewhere about what a devilish, naughty little mouse Mickey turned out to be.26

Various state censors had begun to ban certain Mickeys, such as the Ohio board barring of
The Shindig
(1930), which showed a cow reading Elinor Glyn’s provocative novel
Three Weeks.
27
Time
reported in February 16, 1931 that

the Motion Picture Producers and Directors of America last week announced that because of complaints of many censor boards, the famed udder of the cow in the Mickey Mouse cartoons was now banned.

14

M I C K E Y ’ S M O N A S T E RY

Cows in Mickey Mouse . . . pictures in the future will have small or invisible udders quite unlike the gargantuan organ whose antics of late have shocked some and convulsed others. . . . Already censors have dealt sternly with Mickey Mouse. He and his associates do not drink, smoke or caper suggestively.28

To put it succinctly, as did the
Motion Picture Herald,
“Mickey has been spanked.”29 Mickey’s own popularity had worked against him, just as Walt and his studio were beginning to achieve financial success. If the studio wanted to remain on the crest of this success, if Walt wanted to hang onto his new-found independence and control, changes had to be made quickly. Consequently, from 1931–33, one can find an overhaul of attitudes towards sexuality and the representation of the body in Disney’s product.

The change in the Mickeys is quick and obvious. First off—no more udders. The cow, eventually named Clarabelle, would now have a skirt or dress to conceal the lower half of her body. Secondly, Mickey’s environment shifted from the rambunctious barnyard to the more sedate middle-class small town. Mickey himself became a parent’s dream icon—“the small-town boy from Middle America who . . . use(d) his wits to survive no matter what the obstacles were before him.”30 Mickey would still pursue Minnie, but with flowers and candy rather than by threatening to toss her out of a plane if she didn’t “come across.” In
The
Birthday Party
(1931) and
Mickey Steps Out
(1931), Mickey’s demeanor and surroundings have changed significantly, as he and Minnie portray conventional sweethearts in a more respectable setting. Most of the Mickeys now showed our hero listening to his girl play the piano in her living room.31

While there was an attempt to keep Mickey calmer and more

moral, the 1931–32 cartoons evince bawdy humor nonetheless. Mickey still throws parties during this period in which characters inevitably shimmy to ragtime music or imitate “cooch” dancing. In an attempt to retain the anarchic energy of the early Mickeys, subsidiary characters were introduced to stir up trouble, trouble which Mickey as new upholder of the status quo would attempt to quell. The most successful of these subsidiary characters was Pluto (who officially appeared in late 1930), always upending things in his search for food or antagonism towards a cat. In
Mickey Steps Out
(1931), for example, Pluto chases a cat under a bed and accidentally runs into the chamber pot. Little kittens M I C K E Y ’ S M O N A S T E RY

15

were found useful for destroying the suburban calm of Mickey’s new environment, as were the dozen or so baby mice that appeared on occasion.
Mickey’s Nightmare
(1932) consists of Mickey dreaming of marriage to Minnie, resulting in numerous offspring. The carnage of the infants’ exploits in Mickey’s home—swinging in one of Minnie’s bras, breaking the chamber pot, tarring the walls (and a Greek bust that turns blackfaced with huge white lips), torturing the pet parrot and cat, as well as Pluto—completely threatens the dream of marital bliss, and Mickey wakes up to hug his dog Pluto and smash a Cupid statue. Thus, the transition away from anarchy and low humor was not immediate.

Yet, the anarchic exploits of these characters did not have the bawdy edge that had been presented in previous cartoons, mainly because these figures did not seem to understand the licentiousness of their actions. Granted, already by 1932, Disney’s animation specialized in portraying characters who seemed to react or think. The success of Pluto is partly due to this development in character animation. Unlike Mickey, though, who was always portrayed as a humanized mouse, Pluto and the kittens consistently represent “dumb” animals. The anarchy they generate is created by their instinctual behavior rather than some evil machination or out-of-control sexual desire. Pluto upends Minnie’s bedroom only because he’s looking for a cat, not because he wants to go through her underwear drawer. The same can be said for the baby mice. Even though they, like Mickey and Minnie, are humanized, they are infants and can still be read as innocent of the havoc they are creating. The chaos these characters engender then is represented as only “natural” to them.